


How To Forage

by WolffyLuna



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Australiana, Backstory, Cooking, Cooking Lessons, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Spoilers for The Eleventh Hour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 09:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8484514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: On the road, Taako's aunt teaches him how to cook and forage.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by both River Cottage and Landline, because why not. 
> 
> Pointing out of any errors (grammatical, spelling, or research) appreciated.
> 
> I will turn all your European Fantasy worlds with elevators Australian.

Auntie Enchi rummaged through the stores, vegetables and preserves thudding against each other. “No, no, not that either.” 

Taako tried in vain to peel potatoes with a butter knife. The woodfire made the little kitchen warm and stuffy, and hot breeze blew in through the window. 

“Farmer can’t be bothered the keep the kitchen supplied. Well, the shearer’s kitchen at least. He probably has herbs to spare in the family.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “You ever foraged before?” 

He’d scrounged and stole oyster and mussel from farms around the Baldur’s Gate, and made valiant attempts at eating periwinkles from the rocks. But that was the coast, not the inland. “No, not really.”

She strode out of the kitchen. “Time to learn another on the round skill then. Hop along.” 

The breeze was stronger and hotter outside, and carried the scents of dung and sweat and lanolin from the shearer’s shed. They clambered over fencing, and climbed up hillsides.

They were halfway up when Enchi stopped but a cluster of plants. Each had long, green leaves, topped with a spray of white star shaped flowers. She started pulling them out.

Taako kneeled beside her. They smelled strong: hot and pungent and very much like-- “Garlic?” 

She nodded. “The wild stuff. It’s not as strong as the stuff from farms, so we’ll need extra.”

They spent the next twenty minutes stripping the hillside, before racing back down to the kitchen. 

“Get chopping those bulbs, I’ll deal with the potatoes.” Even with a dull knife, she stripped the skins off faster than Taako could ever imagine doing. She talked as she peeled and cooked and busied herself, giving him little bits of wisdom.

“I’ve really got to show you how to do this with chicken some time, and farmed garlic, it’s even better. But mutton’s good to, and mutton’s what we got.”

The lamb and garlic got into the oven in the nick of time, and they spent the rest of the afternoon making bread for breakfast tomorrow, using the last of the heat to rise the yeast. Enchi was quieter; Taako was a seasoned hand at bread. 

The shearers shuffled in after dusk, grabbing great hunks of meat. The kitchen didn’t just smell of smoke anymore, it smellt of garlic and meat juices and sweaty people covered in grease.

Taako picked at his plate, too hot to have an appetite. Which was a shame, because it was good. The slow cook had taken the edge of the piles of garlic, and the flavour made up for the toughness of the meat. But Enchi was right, it’d be even better with spring chook and a little more kick in the garlic. 

***

_“What you good at kid?”_

_“I can cook.” Taako said it with confidence and a practiced straight face. He_ could _cook, but it was simple shit. Edible, not much else._

_The caravan leader rubbed his chin. His skin was mottled and sun weathered, except for his hands. His hands were young and smooth. A shearer, Taako guessed. Only shearers and wool classer got hands like that._

_“A quick learner too?”_

_“I don’t want to brag, but I’m the quickest I know.”_

_“Our cook’s been whining for an assistant to natter with. Though you might have to end up filling in as a classer.”_

_“I’ll be the best classer you’ve ever met,”_

_“Not so sure about that, kid.” He lead Taako through the caravan, through to the cook fire. “Enchi, I’ve got an assistant for you.”_

_An elf woman turned around. She was tall, and a little pudgy like all good cooks. Her eyes had crow’s feet, more likely from age than sun by Taako’s guess. She leaned down to Taako’s eyeline._

_“What’s your name?” Her voice was soft, with a New Elfington accent. Seemed a little familiar too._

_“Taako.”_

_“Taako Taaco?”_

_He nodded. He hoped his name hadn’t been spread round to other caravans, they’d probably have passed down that he was a bad cook as well._

_“You remember Auntie Enchi?”_

_“Came down to Candlenights when I was five?” He was guessing. He remember an aunt visiting then, but not which.one. She looked similar to his blurred memories._

_She grinned and held up a thumb. “Hole in one.”_

_The next few weeks going from farm to farm where good. Enchi seemed to like the company and the audience, and she never asked why her twelve year old nephew was hopping from caravan to caravan._

***

The head shearer, dragged Taako out of the kitchen. “Felix is sick today. Or at least ‘sick.’ Just pick out the seeds, and let Amelie make the decisions.” 

Amelie was one of the ones who always thanked him and Enchi for dinner, and had the softest hands of the lot. 

You’d be surprised at how much hidden seeds could be in one small fleece, Taako found out. Grass seeds wedged under his fingernails, and he could swear they were bleeding, even if he couldn’t see any blood. The shed was hotter than the kitchen: the press of sheep and people making more heat than the stove. 

By afternoon smoko, when most of the day’s heat had gone, Felix ‘miraculously recovered.’ Taako dragged himself over to the kitchen. 

Enchi seemed more subdued. “I’ve got an important foraging lesson for you.” 

“Gods, I don’t think I could be outside for one more second.’” 

Enchi smiled a little. “This is one you can learn indoors.” She held out her cupped hands to him. A pile of little black berries sat in the middle. 

“Would you eat them?” She asked.

“Hells yeah,” He reached out to grab one. 

She closed her hands. “Are you sure?” 

Taako tipped his head. 

“What do you think they are?” 

“Elderberries, probably.” 

“Did you see me pick them, did you see the plant?” 

He still didn’t quite know where this conversation was going. 

“Foraging is useful, powerful even. But you have to be careful. Elderberries and nightshade berries look the same, only difference is the plant. So many dangerous plants look safe. I want you to know how to find your own food, but I don’t want to you to poison yourself. I like you to much, okay?” Taako couldn’t quite tell how joking or serious that last sentence was. “Only eat food you’ve seen the plant it’s come from, and even then, only eat it if you would swear on you life that you can identify what it is. Because when you put it in your mouth, that’s what you’re doing.” 

“I’ll be careful.” 

She grinned again. “I can’t imagine you doing that, but at least I can imagine you staying alive.” She put the berries in his hands. “These are actually elderberries. Didn’t expect to find any this time of year, but there you go.” 

As they puttered around the kitchen, Taako savoured the berries. He sucked on them slowly, one at a time. 

***

The wagon bounced and rocked, rolling the berries in Taako’s hands. The scent of sweaty, overworked mules, and the sounds of Sazed’s yips and and whip cracks wafted down. 

Transmutation counted as seeing the plant, being sure of what it was, right? It was how the spells worked.

Even so, Taako couldn’t bring the ‘elderberries’ to his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Taako's aunt has been named to keep the Mexican food theme.


End file.
